Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has brought new solutions to emerging
concepts and circumstances such as globalization, socio-economic development and
growth, social structural changes and management issues, and the increasingly complex and
multifaceted problems rising as the result of their intersection.
Such clusters of solutions have emerged under headings such as e-government and egovernance.
These solutions however have faced difficulties in answering the questions and
resolving the problems due to many influential factors including a multi-linguistic and
multidisciplinary sphere of theoretical and practical arguments. In this regard new
institutionalization theory provides an integrated multi-dimensional instrument to study and
get a better perspective of the issues. New-institutionalization factors such path dependency
perspective have been employed in this research seeking answer to the question of: how egovernment
can be implemented in developing countries, where institutional structure and
circumstances are not prepared. The aim of this research was to examine, conceptualize and
verify a model for implementing e-government, as a modern means into underdeveloped
context, using the new-institutionalism theory.
The research was conducted using a mixed research method including: literature analysis;
secondary data based quantitative analysis to classify and compare institutionalization and
e-government characteristics of 138 countries between 1995-2005; and qualitative method
of multiple case studies using interviews with specialists, workshops and questionnaires in
Iran, and also an in-depth case study. The study led to the development and proposition of a
practical scenario for implementing e-government in developing countries.
The study showed that presence of institutions is a prerequisite for achieving successful
implementation of e-governrnent, a factor similarly found for economic development by
economists.
The study recommended, based on theoretical induction supported by empirical evidence
that in the absence of required institutions and with typical incapability of the state in
developing world to produce or compensate them solutions exist and should be sought in going through a phased approach (called minimal e-government). The idea is that a
candidate organization with certain institutional conditions and characteristics could
undertake the role of achieving full potential e-governmcnt, instead of the central
government, and follow it to achieve e-governance. The organization,
which is also supposed to have the ability to diffuse the idea and practice to other public
organizations as well as non-governmental through networking, will lead this way with the
support from the state towards a more reliable achievement of e-governance at state level.
The proposed theory was examined through a study of six cases of semi-governmental
organizations in Iran. The study of the cases, which were found at different levels of
preparedness in terms of being a role model and modernized, led to identification of a best
candidate which was then verified through an in-depth study. The study is expected to
contribute to a realistic understanding of e-government implementation in developing
countries and the process of decision making by policy makers, public administration
executives and international governance organizations. The message is that e-governrnent
and eventually e-governance can be implemented in a developing context even in the
absence of state's intention or capability, and be promoted as a context related solution and
as a mediator for state's development.